


Dirge for the North

by grayglube



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt And Some Comfort, Past Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 21:11:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7404943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayglube/pseuds/grayglube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Long Winter has come to pass but Summer is still far away. Sansa knows that the world must sometimes right itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dirge for the North

**Author's Note:**

> I should be working on a different fic but I wanted angsty jonsa and this was sort of prompt fill since that's what inspired it but then it just kept getting bigger.

 

He is dreaming of Sansa and of Jon.

 

_After the Godswood, after the feast she stands  in the chambers they will share in her shift and smiles, embittered and conspiratorial. “It’s funny. Isn’t it? That I’ve done this more times than you.” She says, meaning marriage, meaning taking a new name, meaning to be owned by another._

_Jon frowns, always serious._

_“Goodnight, Sansa.”_

 

Bran wakes angry, things are never so clear, another future that may never come to pass.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“I had a woman once. She died because I chose duty.”

 

“Do you wish you chose differently?”

 

“I know I made the right choice.”

 

She would ask if he ever wish he made a different choice, of course he does, everyone does, no one is ever satisfied with the things they have chosen, she knows this, “Father was going to send us home. He had a ship readied.”

 

“…”

 

“And I told Cersei Lannister.”

 

Still, there is only his silence.

 

“And then I had what I thought I wanted and then they killed him and then there was no one to protect me.”

 

And then there is her name, “Sansa.”

 

“Arya was lost because of me, Jon. Father would have died, regardless, I know. And everything that’s been done to me I started, but Arya, wherever she is, whatever she’s suffered is because of what I have done.”

 

“It isn’t.” He insists.

 

“It is, and I hope she is dead.”

 

They both know by now that dead is better. They've both been denied it, they've both been past it, they both understand. Death is kindness. She means to tell him how she is filled with such rage, awful, black, painful rage. But she doesn't. They sit in silence and eventually he stands to leave.

 

* * *

 

Bran still sleeps, and they are both lost while they wait for their brother to wake from his endless dreams. _Visons_. Howland Reed's daughter insists, Meera has long since left the room so they may argue in peace. Bran still sleeps. Ghost whines when either of them speak too loudly.

 

“You let a traitor go, Sansa!”

 

She can only blame herself, she'd been the one to speak of Theon. She waits until his anger has cooled in the wake of her silence. She speaks of other things then, she speaks of her wedding night and he doesn't want to listen, but he does.

 

“I thought then that knowing our house was dead was the worst thing I could feel, and then I remembered the bedding was still going to happen, and then it did and I thought nothing could be worse than that, what he did, how he made Theon watch him do those things to me."

 

She see Jon's face go pale, like a dead man, his jaw tight, his hand holding the chair so tightly his fingers turn white too.

 

“I never saw the King ask for Cersei, you know, she’d have gatherings every night with her ladies and those of us at court who were noble daughters, he never called her away to his chambers and we were never sent away because he was coming to hers. I never remember a time our father called my mother to bed if he knew she was at some other task, so I’d thought the same for all men and their wives."

 

She goes on because he hasn't stopped her yet.

 

“Ramsay had a girl already, Theon pushed her off the gatehouse wall later before we escaped but before all that I had thought, ‘surely he’ll go to her’ but he didn’t. He came _every_ night, and sometimes during the day. No man can do worse to me than he has. I don’t hate you Jon. But, you aren’t as different as you think you are from the men who have hurt me.

 

“Stannis marched on King’s Landing and his army would have taken us when they took the castle. If they had won do you know what would have happened? You do, but it feels unpleasant to think of. I’d been a little girl then and they would have fucked me until I’d bled, they’d have put a bastard in me if I didn’t die in the night from what they would have done. I stood in my chambers and decided that if Stannis won I was going to jump from my window, I would have died before being dishonored. Maybe I’d still felt guilty about father. Now? Every man, wilding and knight of the Vale could come to my chamber and do as they pleased and all I’d feel is the joy of knowing they’d die from what’s coming down to kill us all.

 

“We won’t survive the Winter like this Jon. You believe in goodness still, but there isn’t any left, not even in me. We will die here unless you make yourself the monster that can kill other monsters."

 

He is silent for so long she no longer thinks he will speak. And then quietly he does, “I didn’t know.”

 

“I let Theon go because I would have died, I would have laid down in a bed to let Ramsay do it little by little night after night, or I would have jumped down into the snow, softly, quietly like the lady they always told me I was, like a song and let the snow fall over me. But he made sure I didn't and so I let him have a horse and told him to go."

 

* * *

 

 

Petyr’s hand is forced, the Lannisters try to attack the Vale for his betrayal and he leaves Winterfell to fight for what he has stolen. In the end she is denied his death, it is another thing Cersei Lannister has taken from her. Yohn Royce is able to exhale, to know peace. The man had been so afraid he would be killed, another scapegoat, another corpse that if followed would lead to a throne made of conquered men's swords.

 

In Winterfell she tells a little boy she will marry him if he will help her brothers stop what is coming to kill them all.

 

He agrees and they wed in the Godswood.

 

Bran is still dreaming. Jon barely looks alive.

 

Brienne helps her into the saddle when it is time to go.

 

* * *

 

 

The snows fall in the Vale by the time he dies.

 

He dies of a fit, in their bed after he’s taken his rights, eagerly and enthusiastic and she can no longer feel anything of the act or of his body inside of her, a numbness of something that has not healed after so many nights spent as the wife of a monster.

 

The dragon queen is a fortnight away and she is waiting when Daenerys Targaryen steps off her beast into the Chamber of the Moon from the wind outside, her beast circles. The bloody gates stand open for her and the men have no need to lay down arms they never picked up.

 

Sansa sits on the stairs above her, she rises and steps down, “I know who you are, the Vale acknowledges your birthright to these kingdoms.” The woman with silver hair, who is not much older than her answers, “You are not the little boy I was expecting, where is Robyn Arryn Lord of the Vale?”

 

“My husband Robyn Arryn, Lord of the Vale died some nights ago. I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell, and also Lady of the Vale I suppose, and Wardeness of East” she adds on afterthought.

 

“I was not expecting open gates.” They stand so close Sansa can see the stitches of the dragon embroidered on the woman's breast. They are small and tidy but the wolf on her own is finer. “I might ask something still.”

 

“You may remain Lady of the Vale, provided your armies follow mine to secure my birthright to the other kingdoms.”

 

The woman has her dragons and her army but her assumptions of others might lead her to ruin despite the strength she carries. Sansa feels something shared between them, trust in the wrong people, betrayal, hurt after hurt, pain in body, heaviness in heart. She tells this conquering queen that, “There will be no kingdom left if you do not turn north, the white walkers will cross the Wall soon. I bring the armies of the Vale there.”

 

It is the only answer she has, and it is all she will do, or she will die. The Dragon Queen's smile is not kind or nice, no matter that it is pretty. “Or to rally with your brothers in a small hope to defeat my army. I know who you are Sansa Stark and I know who your brothers are.”

 

“You think I’m talking about stories? Dragons are stories, and the Targaryens are all supposed to be dead. You’ve survived fire. My brother Jon was stabbed to death, the say my brother Bran knows things no one alive could know of the past. He sent this for you.” She holds out the letter, still sealed with the Direwolf that is Bran's sigil now, the last Stark in Winterfell. Sansa would pray if she still believed in the Gods.

 

When the letter has been read and burned the woman asks, “Did he send you a letter?”

 

“He did, he wrote if we were unable to convince you then all that was left was to say goodbye.”

 

“They say you killed the usurper’s son and fled, I suppose I should thank you.”

 

Sansa knows then that they will go North.

 

“Lord Baelish and the Tyrells killed Joffery, then Baelish killed my aunt, and then he sold me to the man who murdered my mother, brother, his wife and heir. Roose Bolton married me to his son who did worse.”

 

A man speaks, a small one but a man nonetheless, “Sansa.”

 

He is breathing hard from the long climb.

 

She looks gently on him, “It’s funny, I was so afraid when we were married, I was so angry, I hated you and every other Lannister. You might have been the kindest person to me then.”

 

The silver queen looks between them, mirth on her mouth and in her eyes, “Married?”

 

“Unconsummated, and under duress.” Tyrion assures.

 

* * *

 

 

 “I will go North.” Daenerys Stormborn says to the Lords of the Vale. She sits in the seat Sansa has sat in. It's only a chair.

 

Sansa speaks first, “I would ask that after the North is secure you will allow Harrold Hardyng to remain permanently as Lord of The Vale, I abdicate all claim and support his true, noble and just right to rule the Vale as your Warden.”

 

She hears, “Lady Sansa,” spoken is hushed awed tones from the man who looks more a knight than she has ever seen before. Harry the Heir. He is still a boy, he only looks like a man. He looks at the ground, humbled, happy, hopeful. He believes in songs still, even now that it is Winter.

           

“And where will you go?” Tyrion asks.

 

“Home.”

 

The dragon queen looks surprised, discomfited by the turn things have taken. “The Lords say that you have been a true leader to them, that you’ve served them well and brought them nothing but good, you could take Lord Hardyng as husband. I would allow it.”

 

“I’m barren.", and Sansa might smile at how quiet the chamber has gone before she continues, "Whether it was always so or by what was done to me by Ramsay Bolton I don’t know, but without heirs there is always conflict. I’m a Stark, my place is the North.”

 

* * *

 

“I’ve heard what happened.”

 

“That’s very vague, Lord Tyrion.”

 

“I’m not really a lord anymore.” He tells her, eyes askance, his smile a soft, warm joke, a nudge of kindness towards her.

 

“Yes, you are.” They walk the halls while the supply train is made ready for the long way down the mountain, he remembers the climb up he's told her.

 

“He promised you his army, he swore to your brothers, and he kept you here.”

 

They speak of Robyn.

 

“He was a boy who had everything he loved stolen, Baelish killed his father too. Robyn became a man who would rather stay locked away with his toys then fight to keep them.”

 

“I am sorry.”

 

“No one can protect anyone, we all must fight, endure, survive.”

 

He stops walking and she stalls her pace to turn and look at him. He swallows and looks away, at the painted stars on the walls of the castle, “I leave tonight, I must meet with the Greyjoys. Theon Greyjoy will be there. I wanted you to know that before you heard somewhere else. I know how that must feel.”

 

“You mean him betraying Robb? Hmmm. Theon was captured by Ramsay. He was mutilated and cut so he’s not even a man anymore. Ramsay made him watch what he would do to me, he broke Theon. We ran away, I would have died in the snow if Theon wasn’t there. I should have still killed him for what he did, what he ruined, but I didn’t.”

 

“…”

 

“But, if he ever comes North to raid I will drown him with my own hands.”

 

Tyrion only nods, solemn. The only man she thinks she might believe a promise from. It's funny.

 

* * *

 

Daenerys Targaryen falls from her Dragon. Tossed from it. Dead men burn and dragon queen can no more fly than any other woman.

 

Sansa watches it.

 

Bran wakes briefly and a dragon wails it’s plaintive grief across the North which she has saved, which she still had to die for.

 

By the time Sansa’s turned from the window Bran’s eyes are milk white and the Dragon has gone silent, it breaks its own neck on the ice of the wall as it falls from the sky. It's brothers died long ago, a bolt of ice to the eye, a thousand dead hands pulling, there are no more dragons.

 

Bran sleeps for ten days after.

 

When he wakes he looks at her with the eyes of a wolf. “I’ve seen many things. Her reign was the worst of them.”

 

Tyrion Lannister will be a better King than any other man with title still alive.

 

Sansa knows that the world must sometimes right itself. She climbs into the saddle, Brienne, Tormund’s score of wildlings, and a retinue of Vale men at arms who are loyal and brave, bastards and second sons who might find claims in the North they never would have in their own homes, ride with her to the Dreadfort.

 

It is hers by rights as a widow. Tormund says they should call it Redfort, she can only smile when she tells them there is already a Redfort in the Vale, Tormund needs Brienne to explain the impracticalities of having two forts with the same name. It's called Lady's Keep, she decides. It is simple to level the past with the furture’s gains. It is colder than Winterfell but she is not haunted by ghosts in it.

 

* * *

 

 

They have married out of necessity, now that the North knows he is no true Stark, Jon doesn’t ask, she has merely held the suggestion in her hand for someone to take, Tormund the wilding did, and then Davos. The finally Bran woke and agreed it would be best too.

 

“You’re like a hero from a song, Jon. But those things do very little to make me warm in Winter. You may have me if you wish.”

 

“But you do not want me in your bed.”

 

“I’ve never known kindness in a man’s touch, to think of it now is unpleasant. It has very little to do with you.”

 

“What can I offer, what can I do?”

 

“I don’t want to be afraid.”

 

“I’m only a man. I swear…”

 

“I don’t want you to swear. I want to be safe, Jon. I don’t care if you must be a monster to do it.”

 

“…Sansa,”

 

She's already slipped between the furs, she pulls at the ties of her shift, let's it fall open around her breasts, just so. He slips in beside her, in the dark.

 

“We won’t ever have heirs. I died once, I did not come back whole.”

 

“The best way to kill a woman is to give her an heir.

”

 

 “…I just thought you should know.”

 

“It doesn’t matter, I don’t think I could love anything in Winter, it's not the time for such things. I told the lords of the Vale I was barren, maybe it’s true.”

 

He moves inside of her furtive and quiet and she only stares into the darkness over his shoulders, he is warm and he does not hurt her and it is bearable.

* * *

 

He comes to her looking haunted. She's been counting stitches when he asks. 

 

“Will you come to bed with me?"

 

“Why?

 

“Because you are the only one in this entire castle who knows what it feels like to lose what you’ve wanted the most."

 

“Winter isn’t a time for gain Jon."

           

“I just want to be warm again, that’s all."

 

“I will go to bed with you."

 

It is how earnest he is. He weeps into her hair while he spills. Something inside of her chest thaws like ice giving.

 

* * *

 

 

She remembers Ramsay who found no joy in tenderness, she remembers Theon having no choice but to obey, she remembers Robyn whose eager mouth went always to her naked breast, and then she thinks of the others whose beds she might have been forced to lie in with, Joffery, Tyrion, Petyr.

 

She thinks of Ramsay’s hounds, as dead as their master, of Theon who she thinks she might have seen at the helm of a ship with a red dragon on it’s sails, of Robyn who came to her bed and spilled inside of her when she was already slick with ergot oil she’d spirited from the maester’s chambers.

 

She’d felt his death for days, a spasm between her thighs, it’d only been the oils but she might have sworn it was some angry spiteful shade taking claim of her again.

 

* * *

 

 

Bran and Meera will have their heir, and Sansa wonders with no small viciousness how such a thing might have happened, if her little brother wargs into other men to bed his frog wife, or if he still can push at her and find comfort in a woman’s warmth.

 

Jon only grinned, happy for Bran, happy that the Starks will go on. She thinks on it by the fire, Brienne reports to her of how their men are training, how the stores are shaping up, how the construction of a second glass garden is almost finished.

 

She bathes and he doesn’t knock, he doesn’t announce his intention to enter, he simply does as he pleases and she does not stir from the water.

 

He does apologize and She still sends Brienne away, the only other person besides herself that has seen her so bare. He’s only come to her bed while she’s been wrapped in her shifts, tucked in tight with furs, the dark around them, and only ever in her bed.

 

Some scars have faded, others are silver, the brand of the flayed man is welted red and hideously unhidden in the light from the fire on what was her unblemished back. She steps from the copper tub and dries, pulls the furs around her and the man she calls husband, the same she called brother only watches her come closer.

 

He’s killed a man today.

 

Beheaded him on the hill.

 

For a crime that called for it. Rape, robbery, a broken vow, it doesn’t matter.

 

He comes to her when he kills because his blood is up. She might have almost forgotten who told her about such awful things.

 

He has tried to go down between her legs before but on her back staring at the canopy of her bed it had only made her remember the games Ramsay would play, the commands Theon would have to obey to help them both avoid a worse fate for the night.

 

Now, he doesn’t do anything. Though, she knows, how badly he wants to soothe her, maybe to please her.

 

She wishes she might feel some ache for him, she wonders if she still might, she tells him so and he breathes through his nose, animal and hungry and she only sees a man who would die to protect her.

 

He follows her to her bed, and lets her kiss him, says that he may have her. He's died once, he did not come back completely a man, there is something of his wolf in him.

 

It is a surprise when he pulls her astride and then has her settle over his plush hungry mouth with prompt hands and strong arms and she had not expected such sudden fervor. He braces her against the scratch of his beard and she feels what she has never felt unaccompanied by pain or shame. Her toes curl toward the soles off her feet where they rest against the coverlet, and her breasts feel heavy and she wants for his beard to chafe at them like it does at her thighs.

 

His tongue slips across her slit, between the seal of her sex and spears inside, insistent and slick and she cannot speak for it.

 

She is planted against his tunic not soon after, panting, pulling at her own furs, too hot and wanting, he only grins, wolfish and hungry and she could love him, hold him closer to her heart then she’s held anyone since before there was no war to fight.

 

When she pulls him from his breaches and puts him between her thighs he ruts close against where he has made her damp and ready and for a time it is simply the slippery movement of them yet unjoined, it is a heavy feeling to have him straining for her, reaching.

 

She does not stop until he has spilled over her pale thighs, the red of her maidenhair, the swollen flesh of where she is hot for him. He only holds her by the hips, the curve of her ass and tugs her back to his mouth.

 

Surely this must be a sign as unquestioned as a white Raven. Winter is almost done. She cries, she is not sad.

 

He may no longer be as alive as any other man but he hardens the same, not long after he's peaked the first time, he fills she and she wonders at the feel of him, the weight of him inside, how she only can think of him and the part of him inside of her, there is need and if they have both been dead before then this now is where they wake.

 

Winter is no time for things like love but she weeps still with his warmth around her, his body stirring hers to something that quickens like lust but suffices as comfort, it isn’t anything other than what they must do to survive with what remains of who they long to be, come summer, come a victory they've already won.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> ergot oil can cause seizures and since robyn is susceptible to seizures...black widow sansa, I'm awful ;)


End file.
